Best Eurorail pass for traveling abroad?

My friend and I are traveling in Europe for 2 months, visiting Greece, Italy, Austria, Switzerland, France and Spain. However, we're pretty in the dark on how the train systems work and wanna make sure we get the best deal!



Would point-to-point ticket sales be cheaper to keep ourselves open for overnight trains, or would an unlimited pass be better, despite how expensive it is? Or should we follow the itinerary suggested by the raileurope website, offering combined tickets to cover days of travel? Also, are there any great deals out there we may not know about?Best Eurorail pass for traveling abroad?
Unfortunately, the answer to your question will vary based on the itinerary that you will be travelling. A rail pass is an excellent idea so long as you use at least a certain amount of train trips - the number varying based on the pass you are looking at getting.



The only way to know for sure is to price out the cost of individual point-to-point tickets versus a rail pass.



To find out the cost of point-to-point tickets, you can use the website for the rail service of the country from which the train is departing (for example, if you are going from Munich to Venice, use the German rail website for the price).



For your countries, here are the websites that will let you price out the tickets:



Austria: http://www.oebb.at/en/index.jsp

France: http://www.tgv-europe.com (select Canada or Britain as your country, as USA will send you to the Rail Europe site)

Italy: http://www.ferroviedellostato.it/homepag鈥?/a>

Greece: http://www.ose.gr (select English at the top-right)

Spain: http://www.renfe.es/horarios/english/ind鈥?/a> (Sadly, all searches must be done in Spanish)

Switzerland: http://www.sbb.ch/en/



If you just want to find out the best itinerary to get between two points, I recommend you use the German Rail website as it is the best at calculating rail trips for anywhere in Europe, even if the trains do not pass through Germany: http://www.bahn.de/international/view/en鈥?/a>



Now, when you get an unlimited rail pass, you still will need to pay reservation fees for certain trains - primarily just the high-speed trains and night trains. For point-to-point tickets, this reservation fee is built-in to the cost of the ticket. The fees can be as little as three euros for a French high-speed TGV, to hundreds of dollars for a high-end private sleeper compartment. A fairly complete list of reservation fees can be found at http://www.ricksteves.com/rail/pdfs/rese鈥?/a>



As a note for overnight trains - make sure that you have your reservations in advance, especially if you are travelling in the summertime. If so, I would suggest you reserve no less than two weeks prior to the night trains that you will be taking.



So, as you can see there is no easy answer to your question without knowing exactly how many train trips you will be taking.